World

Day Of Blasts In Baghdad

September 25, 2004 / 2:34 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Baghdad was rocked by a series of explosions on Friday that left four people dead, as a wave of kidnappings continued.

A rocket hit the busy Baghdad thoroughfare Palestine Street. The U.S. military said four Iraqis were killed and 14 were wounded. There were no American casualties.

Mortars exploded earlier near the Italian Embassy in the capital, slightly wounding three Iraqis, the Foreign Ministry in Rome said. The mortars were fired shortly after 6 a.m. when the embassy offices were closed, the Foreign Ministry said.

Another blast occurred in late afternoon. After dark, two more echoed through the capital, the scene of regular attacks by insurgents waging a 17-month campaign against Iraq's U.S.-backed interim government. The location of the blasts was not clear, and the military had no immediate information.

Also in the capital, gunmen abducted six Egyptians and four Iraqis working for Iraq's mobile phone company, seizing two in a bold raid on the firm's office and the others outside the capital.

In other developments:

U.S. Marines fired artillery rounds at militants in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad, the military said. The shooting came after Marines saw insurgents getting out of a vehicle with a mounted machine gun, said 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert, a Marine spokesman. There was no word on casualties.

The British Embassy in Baghdad distributed some 50,000 leaflets in Baghdad with a plea from hostage Kenneth Bigley's family for residents to help find him and a phone number to call with information. "A family man called Ken Bigley is being held somewhere in your community," the leaflet said. "Ken's mother, brothers, wife and child love him dearly. We are appealing for your help."

In Baghdad, a leading Sunni Muslim cleric urged militants to release two Italian women aid workers held since Sept. 7 along with two Iraqis. Two separate Internet postings this week claimed that Simona Pari and Simona Torretta had been killed, but the Italian government says neither claim is reliable.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry faulted President Bush on Friday for pursuing Saddam Hussein instead of Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, a part of a Bush strategy he contended had made defeating terrorism more difficult.

The No. 2 official at the State Department said Friday that the elections planned for January in Iraq must be "open to all citizens," contradicting Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld who suggested the day before that voting might not be possible in the more-violent areas.

With his fate tied to the chaos in Iraq, Prime Minister Tony Blair faces his ruling Labor Party next week, hoping to calm anger over the war and shore up his government ahead of national elections.

An aide to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr warned Friday that his supporters could rise up again if Iraqi authorities continue raiding his offices and detaining his followers.

Earlier this week, U.S. troops raided al-Sadr's office in the southern holy city of Najaf and detained about a dozen people. The move angered al-Sadr's followers as well as Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who said it violated a peace deal he brokered.

"This aggression is a serious precedent in the new Iraq and for the state which has thrown itself in the arms of the occupation," said sheik Hashim Abu Regheef in a sermon attended by hundreds of worshippers outside nearby Kufa Mosque.

Al-Sadr, who commands widespread support among Iraq's poorer Shiites, led a three-week uprising in Najaf against the U.S. Marines that ended last month with a peace deal brokered by al-Sistani.

In Fallujah, American warplanes have repeatedly targeted the network of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in recent weeks with attacks in and around Fallujah.

Al-Zarqawi's Tawhid and Jihad group has beheaded two Americans who were kidnapped in Baghdad a week ago along with Bigley. The militants have threatened to kill the 62-year-old Briton next unless Iraqi women are freed from prison.

In London, the Muslim Council of Britain said it was sending a pair of negotiators to Baghdad to try to win Bigley's release. Iqbal Sacranie, the group's secretary-general, urged Bigley's captors to free him, saying, "Islam does not allow us to harm the innocent."

Two of the Egyptians were kidnapped Thursday night when gunmen stormed into the office of the Iraqna mobile phone company in Baghdad's upscale Harthiya neighborhood, Iraqi Interior Ministry official Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.

The men were all working for Iraqna Mobile Net or contractors, according to Farouq Mabrouk, an Egyptian Embassy official. In addition, he said four Egyptian engineers and four Iraqis were kidnapped Wednesday while working outside Baghdad. One Iraqi was later freed, he said, but he gave no other details.

More than 140 foreigners have been kidnapped in Iraq — some by anti-U.S. insurgents and some by criminals seeking ransom — and at least 26 of them have been killed by their captors.

The hostage-takings have highlighted the extremely volatile security in Iraq, a situation that is only expected to get worse in the run-up to elections scheduled to take place by the end of January.

With car bombs, shootings and kidnappings escalating and several cities effectively under insurgent control, there are concerns that Iraq will not be ready to hold a vote by the Jan. 31 deadline. But Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, are eager to hold elections since they expect to dominate whatever government emerges.